I am unavoidably detained this evening by the end of our fiscal year and I've got IT people, an inventory service, and other "direct reports" (as they call them these days) bugging me with questions.

Tomorrow: the people in accounting. (shudder)

In the meantime, I do know that Anna Nicole Smith made an appearance at the Supreme Court today to hear her case. There was some discussion about Clarence Thomas failing to recuse himself based on the fact that he has had sex with Smith. However, since she wasn't in the room at the time of the act, it was considered a moot point...

BUSH: Listen, here's the problem that happened in Katrina. There was no situational awareness, and that means that we weren't getting good, solid information from people who were on the ground, and we need to do a better job. One reason we weren't is because communications systems got wiped out, and in many cases we were relying upon the media, who happened to have better situational awareness than the government.

Yet Paul Bremer, the head of the U.S. occupation authority in Iraq, has noted that in the near-term oil industry revenues will cover only the industry's costs. That is, there will be no oil revenues available to pay for reconstruction. More importantly, in response to a pointed question about the MIA WMDs--"Can you explain…whether you were surprised those weapons haven't turned up, why they haven't turned up, and whether you feel that your administration's credibility has been affected in any way by that?"--Bush countered, "We took action based upon good, solid intelligence."

BUSH: Listen, I know of nobody—I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action. And this investigation is a good thing.

And again I repeat, you know, Washington is a town where there's all kinds of allegations. You've heard much of the allegations. And if people have got solid information, please come forward with it. And that would be people inside the information who are the so-called anonymous sources, or people outside the information—outside the administration. And we can clarify this thing very quickly if people who have got solid evidence would come forward and speak out. And I would hope they would.

And then we'll get to the bottom of this and move on. But I want to tell you something—leaks of classified information are a bad thing. And we've had them—there's too much leaking in Washington. That's just the way it is. And we've had leaks out of the administrative branch, had leaks out of the legislative branch, and out of the executive branch and the legislative branch, and I've spoken out consistently against them and I want to know who the leakers are.

A new poll to be released today shows that U.S. soldiers overwhelmingly want out of Iraq — and soon.

The poll is the first of U.S. troops currently serving in Iraq, according to John Zogby, the pollster. Conducted by Zogby International and LeMoyne College, it asked 944 service members, “How long should U.S. troops stay in Iraq?”

Only 23 percent backed Mr. Bush’s position that they should stay as long as necessary. In contrast, 72 percent said that U.S. troops should be pulled out within one year. Of those, 29 percent said they should withdraw “immediately.”

That’s one more bit of evidence that our grim stay-the-course policy in Iraq has failed. Even the American troops on the ground don’t buy into it — and having administration officials pontificate from the safety of Washington about the need for ordinary soldiers to stay the course further erodes military morale.

One would think that this disgraceful act of not backing Our Glorious Leaders War On Terra Wherever He Wants To would cause the 101st Fighting Keyboarders to descend upon the airports to spit on the big quitting Army babies.

But that would require leaving the house. And courage, don't forget the courage.....

We owe it to the Iraqi people to do everything we can to help avert a civil war and give their fledgling democracy a chance. Saving them from themselves, however, is both beyond our power and responsibility. If they decide civil war is the only way to settle their longstanding disputes, we must stand aside and let them fight it and then try to salvage a relationship with the eventual victors. While that would be a bitter pill, indeed, after coming so close to achieving the incredibly ambitious vision of the neo-cons, it would nonetheless be preferable to the other alternatives.

I guess the "You broke it, you bought it" rule is no longer in effect.

As Tony Snow says, the hysterics of both Democratic and Republican members of Congress "confirmed the Founder's view that the president, and not the legislature, should handle national security matters." The matter now will be re-opened for 45 days of study, during which period the administration will attempt to address the concerns of Congress. Given the importance, sensitivity, and complexity of the issue, this makes sense in theory. But given the importance, sensitivity, and complexity of the issue, is Congress capable of rational discourse and analysis?

169. President Bush himself stated in a speech to NATO, “Never did anybody’s thought process about how to protect America (sic) did we ever think that the evildoers would fly not one, but four commercial aircraft into precious US targets – never.”

So I'll hope you understand if we pass on this once in a lifetime offer. Thanks for offering though...

Everyone's gone to the movies, now we're alone at last...You know. That guy that was in that movie about that thing? You know...

Jason Apuzzo takes a break from reviewing movies he hasn't seen to offer commentary on the host of a show that he probably won't watch:

Finally there was this most recent podcast from the LA Times guys dealing with whether Jon Stewart’s hosting of the Oscars will be a disaster or not. Personally, I think it will be - for any number of reasons. Basically the Academy has lost confidence in its own product these days, and so they’re grasping for ways to remain ‘relevant’ - and this, basically, is what motived the selection of Jon Stewart. The problems with Stewart are many; a) he isn’t actually funny, merely nasty; b) he has nothing to do with the industry; c) he will tend to accentuate the political side of this year’s films, which will inevitably turn people off; d) Stewart really only has a niche following in the first place, chiefly among media people.

So this, basically, is your Oscar host for 2007. Patrick’s right - it may not be long before the Oscars are telecast on the USA Network, or maybe HBO (how about the WB?) … and the era of Hollywood’s New Triviality is upon us.

Of dear, he's still pushing the New Triviality argument that has gone to the same fleabag motel as his career. Guess he shouldn't have had those "Ask me about the New Triviality" tote bags made up, Just. Quite. Yet.

Anyway, we learn that Jason doesn't think that Stewart is "funny" He's just "nasty". Okay, There is no accounting for taste, but we will point out that Apuzzo seems to have a fanboy grudge against the Academy because Revenge of the Sith didn't sweep the nominations. You may use this as your base line for "taste". It's way too easy for us.

Next up, Stewart "has nothing to do with the industry". We will disregard the fact that it was the "industry" that chose him to host the show (it wasn't like he was standing in a deli line and his number came up) so they ,must think he brings something to the table. But,now that you mention it, when it comes to involvement with the industry, you can, as they say, look it up.

Here is Stewart's cinema vitae. Hmmm Big Daddy, The Faculty, Playing By Heart and a bunch of bit parts here and there.

Here's is the Hollywood career of Jason Apuzzo. Based upon Jason's career as a film critic (working almost exclusively from trailers) I think it might be safe to say that Stewart has been in more movies than Apuzzo has seen.

Next up, Stewart will accentuate the "political side" of the movies. I assume that means that he doesn't think that Stewart will say enough nice things about Joe McCarthy. I used to think that was one of BillY Crystal's biggest flaws as a host. Not enough shout-outs for the black list...

Finally, Stewart has a "niche following", y'know the media. I see that back during the 2004 election, following the Presidential debates, The Daily Show had an estimated 2.4 million viewers, presumably all creatures from the MSM lagoon. And I guess they found some other people who like Stewart:

TV's anti-Walter Cronkite will be dispensing (with) the news for a while longer.

Jon Stewart, the star of Comedy Central's Emmy-winning, headline-skewering The Daily Show, has agreed to a four-year contract extension that will keep him anchoring the mock newscast through the 2008 presidential race, the cable network announced Friday.

"A lot of people like to get out when their show's still going well," Stewart said in a statement. "This gives me the opportunity to beat this thing into the ground."

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it's expected the 41-year-old funnyman will see a raise over the his current estimated $1.5 million a year. His contract had been due to run out at the end of this year.

Stewart took over the anchor desk in January 1999 from original host Craig Kilborn, who had been with the program since it debuted in 1996 before leaving to host NBC's Late Night. While cracking wise at the day's big headlines, poking fun at the broadcast media and spoofing politicians, Stewart's razor-sharp wit and his crew of snarky "correspondents" have garnered The Daily Show its biggest audiences ever.

Airing in the 11 p.m. time slot, the fake news show has averaged about 1 million viewers per episode this season, surpassing the total number of viewers, including in the key adults 18-49 demo, tuning in to see real cable networks like CNN, Fox News and MSNBC. Its Nielsen stats have also made The Daily Show a favorite among advertisers.

Stewart, who serves as executive producer and head writer, has also helped The Daily Show to critical acclaim, winning a Peabody Award and three Emmys, including one last year for Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series.

Given the freedom and the platform Comedy Central execs have provided him--not to mention the new raise--it's no surprise Stewart's sticking with The Daily Show instead of following Kilborn out the door.

Before joining The Daily Show, Stewart emceed the syndicated Jon Stewart Show, which originally aired on MTV, and was a fill-in host for The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder.

He hosted the 2002 Grammy Awards and has also tried his hand at acting. Aside from a recurring role as Garry Shandling's scheming successor on HBO's The Larry Sanders Show, Stewart has appeared on the big screen in such flicks as The First Wives Club, Playing by Heart, Death to Smoochy, Big Daddy and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.

Wow. Look at that! Even E-online has heard of Stewart.

Not that Jason doesn't hang out with the toast of Hollywood. Yes, that really is Craig Titley, who wrote the story line for Scooby Doo. Hanging out with him must be like having brunch with God.

SCHWARZENEGGER: And it's a very complex issue, because, you know, we have the globalization, we want to do trades with everyone all over the world, but at the same time, globalization crosses with terrorism now, and there's that whole fear. And then we have villainized the Arab world also so much that now Arab country -- or company taking over our ports and maybe have some influence in our security, it freaks everyone out, and rightfully so.

[...]

SCHWARZENEGGER: No, I think it's always easy in hindsight to go and say maybe if we wouldn't have gone in, we wouldn't have had all this hassle.

No word on whether he is "totally bummed" about his approval numbers...

The Dilettante's BallMedic! Medic! Skippy's been hit with pink acrylic! You bastards! You stinking bastards. As God is my witness, I will avenge thee, Skippy. And, uh, save me some beers back at the H3. And don't get any paint on the upholstery....'kay?

Stephen Green, the Mr. Kurtz of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders, who just wishes all the Muslims would just kill each other so he wouldn't have to fret about being wrong about the war and other icky things, has better things to do with his time:

Via Roger Ailes the Good, we see that just about anybody can get a book contract these days (unless you're writing a roman à clef about a college professor going through a mid-life crisis in which case, thanks but no thanks, we have plenty of those). Anyway we see that Hans Zeiger, author of Get Off My Honor: The Assault on the Boy Scouts of America has chosen to not put those Eagle Scout survival skills to the test by volunteering for the Clash of Civilizations (that would be the Christian vs Islamojihadifascistafarian Clash of Civilization, not to be confused with the Hollywood vs My Sucky Career Clash of Civilization which currently scores a 60/40 split on the Funny/Sad meter). Instead he's written another book to give conservatives hope while they point and say, "See! see! America's youth isn't just a bunch of tattooed iPoded slackers who have more sex in one week than I've had in my six years of marriage to my third wife. Now you'll excuse me while I go check out Suicide Girls and masturbate...Wait. Wait. Did I just say that out loud?"

Sorry. Back to Hans (And let's be honest, Hans Zeiger is such a cool butch militaristic name. Almost as good as Max Boot). Sorry. Again.

The British call those born during Margaret Thatcher's prime ministry "Thatcher's Children." Likewise, the thirty million Americans born from 1981 to 1988 could be considered "Reagan's Children." In his second book, young activist Hans Zeiger, born in 1985, suggests his generation is indeed reflective of former President Ronald Reagan's conservatism, faith, and optimism.

"There is a strong and vital corps of young Americans who are committed to the simple, permanent things of the spirit that define the American character," Zeiger says. "These are Reagan's Children who will keep America going."

Yeah. I didn't notice anything in there about fighting and shit. That must be for the children of some other former President.

Of this unrest I myself saw nothingWestern shame? Never heard of it...

“The governors appointed by the Crown were powerless for good. The practical exercise of power was in the hands of the servants of a soulless corporation on the opposite side of the globe, whose predominant feeling was contempt for the people over whom they were placed.” Originally from Harper's New Monthly Magazine, vol. 25, iss. 149, October 1862. By A. H. Guernsey.

What happens when the 101st Fighting Keyboarders get bored with advocating American Brand freedom and democracy for the Middle East?

A civil war is the nastiest way to get a good result. The United States hasn't faced a succession crisis since we settled that ugly business at Appomattox in 1865, and no one to the left of the Ku Klux Klan has since advocated we bring back slavery. Getting there cost 600,000 American lives, but obviously they were not lost in vain.

[...]

Nobody even knows if a civil war has really started in Iraq. We have to leave that to the guys on the ground to figure out, and, hopefully, the guys with stars on their shoulders to tell us. Right now, however, things don't look so good. In fact, things are looking pretty bad all over the Middle East.

Paradoxically, the worse things get, they better they may be.

Let's get the bad out of the way first.

An Iraqi Civil War would be a disaster. Every bit of reconstruction, every small gesture of friendship between peoples and sects, every last chance of keeping Iraq viable and whole… well, that's probably all gone. Lacking professional armies and Western ideas of shame, modern Arab wars can drag on as guerilla actions for decades. Let's not forget that in the process, a lot of good people, ours and theirs, would die in Iraq.

[...]

Now for the good news.

If we're looking at an Islamic civil war, then vast numbers of good people will die, from Libya to Oman. Luckily, they won't have to be our people. In the very worst-case scenario, the Middle East could blow up – and we could bug out, pronto. "This is the good news?" you ask. Yes, and I'll explain why.

Christianity was a violent religion until the Thirty Years War. That war lasted so long, and killed so many people (the population of Germany was reduced by a third), that Christendom lost its bloodlust. Freedom of conscience was born on the battlefields of central Europe. The Middle East hasn't suffered that kind of loss; they haven't yet had their fill of blood; they haven't yet become disgusted with tyranny. I'd like to think that the Middle East can do what the West did, without all the suffering. But if it takes regional fratricide, then so be it.

Also on the plus side: a Middle East at war with itself would probably be too busy to wage war on us. Other than police actions to keep the oil flowing, we might finally be rid of the whole damn place. Israel might even enjoy a respite.

An unidentified relative looks at the body of a ten year old girl Asa'd Al-A'reji, a victim of a car bomb explosion, in a hospital in Karbala, 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, Feb. 25, 2006. A car bomb exploded Saturday in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, killing at least six people, including two women, and injuring more than 52, police said. The attack occurred as Baghdad and three nearby provinces were on a second day of a daytime curfew aimed at dampening the wave of sectarian violence that has killed more than 140 people since the bombing of a Shiite shrine.(AP Photo/Alaa Al-Marjani)

Of this unrest I myself saw nothing, In private I observed that once in every generation, without fail, there is an episode of hysteria about the barbarians. There is no woman living along the frontier who has not dreamed of a dark barbarian hand coming from under the bed to grip her ankle, no man who has not frightened himself with barbarians carousing in his home, breaking the plates, setting fire to the curtains, raping his daughters. These dreams are the consequence of too much ease. Show me a barbarain army and I will believe.- Waiting for the Barbarians

When searching for a picture of Rita Cosby last night, I came accross this one of Cosby, plastic surgery afficianado Jocelyne Wildenstein, and Kato Kaelin. I'm willing to guess that, in the history of the question:

If you could have dinner with any three people in history, who would you choose?

Military interrogators posing as FBI agents at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, wrapped terrorism suspects in an Israeli flag and forced them to watch homosexual pornography under strobe lights during interrogation sessions that lasted as long as 18 hours, according to one of a batch of FBI memos released Thursday.

When asked to comment, Ken Mehlman, Chairman of the Republican National Committee replied.

In the bright and glittery constellation that is Pajamaline Media there are those who could be charitably called 'lesser lights' or not-so-charitably called, 'dim bulbs'. And then there is Ed Driscoll.

I have a theory about Driscoll. Back when the Pajamaline ponzi scheme new media paradigm was but a gleam in Roger and Charles wallets, they needed a lawyer with Silicon Valley connections to help pave the way to VC moolah. Enter attorney Nina Yablock who happens to be Ed's wife.Well, long story, short deposition it looks as though in compensation for her work tradmarking OSM they agreed to let Ed do some Pajamablogging because he was just hanging around the house being annoying.

Which takes us to today, when Ed takes on Hollyweird, or in this case Rob Reiner.

There's a curious flip-over that occurs in any celebrity's career when he or she comes out as a member of the left. On the one hand, the fullblown brass ring of Schwarzenegger/Bruce Willis/Mel Gibson-level megastardom becomes much more difficult to obtain, because you've given audiences in red state middle America a great reason to avoid your movies. On the other, your career is set: you'll never not each lunch in this town again, to mangle the title of the late Julia Phillips' famous tell-all.

Take for example, Rob Reiner, whom Hugh Hewitt has been hamering(sic) all week.

Okay, I'm not sure what exactly a "flip-over" is, but I do know that it's been a while since anyone called Schwarzenegger or Bruce Willis a 'megastar" and if being rightwing is bankable with the red states, then Houston we have a problem with Bandits, Hart's War, Tears of the Sun, The Whole Ten Yards, and Hostage, although Willis totally kicked ass as the voice of Spike in Rugrats Go Wild!. But this isn't about Willis or Gibson or the Gropinator...no. It's about why do the studios continue to throw money at Reiner:

Hey, everybody's entitled to strike out now and then, especially with a public as fickle as ours. But if you look at the box office returns of Reiner's movies on IMDB.com for literally the last decade, the last time he directed a film that grossed higher than its budget in the US was the leftwing-lovefest The American President in 1995, and even then, just barely. (About three million over its $62m budget, according to the IMDB. George Lucas and James Cameron don't even get out of bed unless they know their films are going to gross a few hundred million dollars.) And yet somehow, a studio manages to assign Reiner a film to direct every couple of years.

Now I know to some people foreign money is just funny-colored toilet paper, but, you know, it's still money. But in Ed's world the only money that can count against the budget is the American gross (USA! USA!), so in the case of Rumor Has It, when the numbers look like this:

...we have to assume that that extra $39 million doesn't really count and falls between the cushions of Reiner's fancy Hollywood leather couch for the maid to pocket.

I couldn't find any information of the budget for Rumor Has It, but let's contrast it with another film that got the conservatives all nipply from last year and compare dollars to arrive at a ballpark figure.

Ron Howard (who was all-American Opie to Reiners's commie-pinko Meathead) directed Cinderella Man which was released last year. As you can see, Cinderella Man grossed $61,649,911 in the US against a production budget of $88 million. Add in foreign dollars and it grossed $108,539,911 or about $26 million more than Rumor. First off, Rumor is still playing and Cinderella is already out on DVD so the gap will narrow, however slightly. Secondly, we have to assume that Cinderella had a much bigger budget when one considers the costs of Academy Award winners Howard, Russell Crowe, and the piggy-eyed Renee Zellwegger and the fact that it is a period piece. I don't have the background to estimate the cost of Rumor (for that we would turn to Jane at FDL) but I'm guessing, oh, lets call it $50 million tops since that was his budget for The Story of Us with Michelle Pfeiffer and (!) Bruce Willis. I'm thinking lower.

So who made more money? Who should get to direct another movie?

Both of them.

Ron Howard gave us A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas (for which we will never forgive him). He also gave us Far and Away, The Paper, EdTV and The Missing.

And for Rob Reiner, for every The Story of Us , North, and Alex & Emma, he has directed Stand By Me, This Is Spinal Tap, When Harry Met Sally, The Princess Bride, A Few Good Men, and Misery.

Few directors make money with every film. In the case of Terrence Malick, they never make money. But as just about anyone could tell Ed, there is more to the bottom line than the domestic gross (Kingdom of Heaven anyone?). So why the cheap shot at Reiner speculating that he gets work because of his politics?

Before I, for the most part, stopped watching TV, I stopped watching sitcoms. I couldn't sit still when I could see the punchline coming three lines before the set-up. Bor-ing. During its brief run Action was the only show that completely wowed me with its brilliance and viciousness and cold bitter laugh-out-loud black humor. I was in awe.

So, of course, the plug was pulled. Too bad. It was the kind of show that could give Brent Bozell an aneurysm.

But there's just nothing more precious than seeing the faux-populist poseur Post editorial writers standing tough against an entrenched "establishment" of thirty-something, tenure-desperate semioticians and lit geeks in defense of "mainstream American values", a well of mores and beliefs with which the Post is no doubt deeply in touch. (Peel away the Fred Hiatt mask and underneath it's Bruce Springsteen; cut a little deeper and he's an Iowa farmer.)

6:10 a.m., Tuesday two days ago, LaGuardia Airport. A long line of what appeared to be roughly a thousand people was snaking down a hall past newsstands and shops. Chaos and an hour wait to get through security. A woman in an airport security uniform patrolled on the left, curtly instructing us to move to the right. A cleaning crew on the right barked, "Coming through, move please!" We stood nervously wherever we wouldn't be yelled at. No one tried to help us, to calm the fears of those about to miss their flights. There was a lot of yelling--"I need your ID open and faced forward! No, you must put that in the bin!" After 45 minutes I got to the first security checkpoint, where I was directed to stand aside for extra clearance. I walked to the rubber matt, stood spread eagled in the Leonardo position, arms out, legs out, as a sleepy stranger ran a wand around my body and patted me for bombs. "Now I know how a cow feels in a cattle pen," I said. I told her how carelessly we'd been treated. She was surprised. No one told her there were a lot of people waiting in line.

Yes. I'm sure that this was the first time that someone has made the incredibly droll remark about being treated like cattle. In fact, everytime someone uses that line, Peggy should get a royalty payment. And a lot of people waiting in line at LaGuardia? When did that start happening?

I gave the speech that night, and returned the next morning to the West Palm Beach airport for the flight home. Here, at 9:30 a.m., it was worse. Again roughly a thousand people, again all of them being yelled at by airport and TSA personnel. Get your computers out. Shoes off. Jackets off. Miss, Miss, I told you, line four. No, line four. So much yelling and tension, and all the travelers in slump-shouldered resignation and fear. The fingers of the man in front of me were fluttered with anxiety as he grabbed at his back pocket for his wallet so the woman who checks ID would not snap at him or make him miss his flight.

This was East Germany in 1960. It was the dictatorship of the clerks, and the clerks were not in a good mood.

After a half hour in line I get to the first security point.

"Linfah," says the young woman who checked my ID.

"I'm sorry?"

"Linfah." She points quickly and takes the next person's ID.

"I'm so sorry, I don't understand."

Now she points impatiently. How stupid could I be?

Line Five. Oh. OK.

Stupid southerners and their lack of proper e-nun-ci-a-tion skills.

I am almost always picked for extra screening. I must be on a list of middle aged Irish-American women terrorists. I know a message is being sent: We don't do ethnic profiling in America. But that is not, I suspect, the message anyone receives. The message people receive is: This is all nonsense. What they think is: This is all kabuki. We're being harassed and delayed so politicians can feel good. The security personnel themselves seem to know it's nonsense: they're always bored and distracted as they go through my clothing, my stockings, my computer, my earrings. They don't treat me like a terror possibility, they treat me like a sad hunk of meat.

Personally I'm more concerned with sitting next to a crazy woman than a terrorist on a long flight, so if they are keeping an eye out for the Pegster...

Speaking of sitting next to a crazy woman, Peggy has her stranger-well-met-affirmation moment:

I boarded my plane. Settled in, took out my notebook, wrote my notes. I turned to the man next to me. "Did you have a bad time with security?"

His eyebrows went up and he shook his head. "It's terrible," he said, in an English accent. He and his fiancé had come for a few days to southern Florida, they'd had hassles coming and going. He said, with wonder, that he was a smoker, that he always carried a keepsake, a gold cigarette lighter. Before he'd left for Florida he'd emptied it so it wouldn't light, and he showed it to the security people at the airport. They told him he couldn't take it on the flight. He asked them to send it to him, they said they couldn't, he'd have to go back to the ticket area and give it to them. But then he'd miss his flight. "It's your problem," they said. He wound up giving the lighter to an airline clerk. "An $800 lighter! Empty!" He didn't know if he'd ever see it again. He said, "It's hard when"--and he put out his hands and shook them--"you're already a bit of nervous about flying!"

Two drinks please, for the the DT-twins in row twelve...

So we're all talking about port security this week, and the debate over the Bush administration decision to allow United Arab Emirates company to manage six ports in the United States. That debate is turning bitter, and I wonder if the backlash against President Bush isn't partly due to the fact that everyone in America has witnessed or has been a victim of the incompetence of the airport security system. Why would people assume the government knows what it's doing when it makes decisions about the ports? It doesn't know what it's doing at the airports.

Hey, we'd settle for the government knowing what the hell it's doing in Iraq, but to work off Peggy's theme: When cattle fly...

In my neverending quest to make you listen to good music (and we know you bought Back To Bedlam, don't pretend that you didn't. You are going to be sooooo embarrassed about this later, trust me.), we present Eels With Strings, Live At Town Hall, another in a fine collection of releases by Mark Oliver Everett. Along with an excellent selection of older Eels tunes it also includes terrific covers of Dylan's Girl From North Country and Johnny Rivers' Poor Side of Town. And how could you not like someone who wrote:

Your baby's daddy is your daddy and I don't care.Shut up and squeeze me out a young'un...

Seeking to populate a barren state, South Dakota enlists to become the first state in the Republic of Gilead:

Setting up South Dakota to become the first state in 14 years to start a direct legal attack on Roe v. Wade, lawmakers voted on Wednesday to outlaw nearly all abortions.

Across the country, abortion rights advocates reacted with outrage and dismay. The Planned Parenthood Federation of America, which runs the sole abortion clinic in South Dakota, said it was bracing to fight the move in court immediately, if the governor signs it.

Some opponents of abortion rights celebrated what they called a bold and brave move and lauded South Dakota for taking the lead in what they said they hoped would become a series of states to challenge Roe, the 1973 decision that made abortion legal.

The shifting makeup of the United States Supreme Court, the opponents said, offered a crucial opportunity, the first since at least 1992.

"It is a calculated risk, to be sure, but I believe it is a fight worth fighting," State Senator Brock L. Greenfield, a Clark Republican who is also director of the South Dakota Right to Life, told his colleagues in a hushed, packed chamber here.

After more than an hour of fierce and emotional debate, the senators rejected pleas to add exceptions for incest or rape or for the health of the pregnant woman and instead voted, 23 to 12, to outlaw all abortions, except those to save the woman's life.

I see a future with a new underground railroad escorting women out of the TheoStates away to freedom.

I'm sure you've all heard the old wives' talethat no hypnotized subject may be forced to do thatwhich is repellent to his moral nature, whatever that may be.Nonsense of course.

The speech is short. But it's the most rousing speech I've ever read. It's been worked on, here and in Russia, on and off, for over eight years. I shall force someone to take the body away from him and Johnny will really hit those microphones and those cameras with blood all over him, fighting off anyone who tries to help him, defending America even if it means his own death, rallying a nation of television viewers to hysteria, to sweep us up into the White House with powers that will make martial law seem like anarchy!

Red herring

Intelligence officer. Stupidity officer is more like it.Pentagon wants to open a Stupidity Division, they knowwho they can get to lead it.

Diversion

Collateral damage

His brain has not only been washed, as they say...It has been dry cleaned.

WASHINGTON - Brushing aside objections from Republicans and Democrats alike, President Bush endorsed the takeover of shipping operations at six major U.S. seaports by a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates. He pledged to veto any bill Congress might approve to block the agreement.

The president on Tuesday defended his administration’s earlier approval of the sale of London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co. to Dubai Ports World, despite concerns in Congress it could increase the possibility of terrorism at American ports.

The pending sale — expected to be finalized in early March — puts Dubai Ports in charge of major shipping operations in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia. “If there was any chance that this transaction would jeopardize the security of the United States, it would not go forward,” Bush said.

I keep telling you not to think! You're very, very good at a great many things, but thinking, hon', just simply isn't one of them.

I know you will never entirely comprehend this, Raymond, but you must believe I did not know it would be you. I served them. I fought for them. I'm on the point of winning for them the greatest foothold they would ever have in this country. And they paid me back by taking your soul away from you. I told them to build me an assassin. I wanted a killer from a world filled with killers and they chose you because they thought it would bind me closer to them.